LITTLE SAPLING
Christina Monson Anna sat in the deck chair, staring at the empty backyard, smoking a cigarette. The long tendrils of smoke floated above her head into nothingness. Anna’s hand laid over the empty void of her belly, and a noiseless sob shook her body, dropping ash onto her ill-fitting jeans. Grimacing, she brushed the ash off before stubbing out the cigarette on the deck with her sneaker. She picked up her glass of wine and took a long drink, trying to burn away the cold feeling in her abdomen. The apple slices her husband had brought out to her were turning brown, but Anna continued to eat them anyway. She thought of how he had set them on the table next to her and walked back inside, away from her, a reminder of all that they had lost. She would have been the size of an apple, according to her baby app. A little apple in her belly, but now that she’s gone, Anna felt like she was missing an entire universe inside of her. Anna spit out a black shiny seed into her palm, and looked at it from all angles. This is how life begins, she thought. Just a little seed. She stood up and walked over to the small box of gardening tools that had been sitting there since they purchased the house. She found a trowel and walked to the center of the yard with it in one hand, and wine glass in the other, the sun beating down on her back as she dug and dug, deeper and deeper into the earth, making a home to harbor the little universe inside the apple seed. “Anna, what the hell are you doing?” Michael cried out, papers in both hands. He had been watching her from the kitchen table while he paid the bills. “I’m planting!” Anna shouted back. She jumped when he slammed the sliding door, but she was focused. She would raise an apple tree in honor of her daughter, she thought, as she tucked the little seed into the earth and covered it in dirt. What a tribute! As she sat back to admire her work, her hand fell upon her wine glass, and shattered it. As she walked back inside the house to bandage her wounds, small ribbons of her blood seeped into the earth and joined the little seed, unbeknownst to Anna. 46
